Changing coats – how hares and ptarmigans survive a warming world | Spotlight: Mafalda Ferreira

Описание: In this video we get to follow Mafalda Ferreira and her research group, as they study species of hares, ptarmigans and grouse and their ability to alternate color between summer and winter.

🎬 Video by ‪@NiklasNWnature‬
🗃️ Museum filming by Hampus Pehrsson Ternström

To study seasonal adaptation, the Ferreira group do fieldwork in remote parts of the world, measure color of specimens in museum collections and work in the wet lab and do computational work.

So how do species adapt to changes in season, and how do they adapt to climate change? And what is life as a researcher really like? In this video, Mafalda Ferreira answers all of these questions and more.

0:00 Intro
0:10 Changing colors
1:51 Field work – finding hares and ptarmigans
2:29 Photographing museum specimens
5:00 Difficulties of working with non-model organisms
9:08 Why not research animals more easily accessible?
10:08 Lab work with Huijuan Bi – creating their own cell lines
11:18 How did Mafalda end up studying color change?
12:52 Life as a researcher
14:55 Staying positive despite the challenges of being a researcher
17:26 What's next & how will climate change affect the animals?

We go inside the lab and the field to explore the incredible molecular mechanisms behind seasonal adaptation. From white winter coats to brown summer plumage, the research group investigates how species like hares, ptarmigans, and grouse evolve to survive in shifting environments.

Mafalda Sousa Ferreira is a SciLifeLab Fellow and Stockholm University researcher. The video also features Huijuan Bi, researcher in the Ferreira group, and PhD Student Maja Svedberg.

WHAT IS SCILIFELAB?
In short: We are a national research infrastructure, funded by the Swedish government, that makes advanced instruments and expertise in molecular biosciences available to all researchers in Sweden. Visit https://www.scilifelab.se/ to learn more.

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